CH 67

「Kyle, today it’s not as chilly as yesterday, so I walked around the garden by myself. I really want to go for a walk on a day like this. But I know. I wouldn’t be greedy anymore and hope to walk with you.」

‘I thought I was good at figuring out things.’

One day, his voice, which was driving her, dominated her mind. 

His hand moved to the next page. She must have stopped updating her diary for a while, so seasons passed.

「Kyle, how are you? I’m doing well. Of course, the baby, too. I’ve written in the diary again after you left. I’m getting nervous because you’re away, so I’m holding onto it as if it’s you. 

Oh, and Laura says the temperature there changes drastically? I hope you are always warm where you are. Be well, Kyle.」

「Kyle, I think my belly is starting to show! Laura says it isn’t, but I know. Well, this is just my gut feeling, but the child is a boy. I have no proof, but I have a good feeling. I want to see you soon, both the child and you.」

Kyle stopped reading her diary and took a deep breath. It wasn’t until his stomach ached so much from breathing too deeply that he realized he was alive. 

He recalled the days when Aelle, saddened by the death of their child, was unstable, as if she were about to disappear. 

Kyle thought she was like him, that she wouldn’t want children. She inherited her parents’ blood, so he thought she might resemble them. He thought she certainly wouldn’t want children.

Don’t get emotional. Don’t be obsessed with your desires. Don’t fall apart. Always be rational and cool. 

He must have thought it would be the same for her. Because that’s what he was. But she wasn’t like that after losing her child.

He rubbed her handwriting with his fingertips. Her pitiful cry, desperate moaning, and sorrowful expression returned like daggers.

When he frowned, tears fell down at his feet.

‘How is Aelle’s health? Is the child alright?’

The questions he had asked Laura once in a while, and the door to her bedroom he had visited and stared at at night. 

He realized through her notes that it was not just loss and guilt but also affection, that he couldn’t approach his child because he was afraid of becoming the same as his parents, and that he was afraid of resembling the father he had forgotten.*

Like when he realized that he loved their baby only after touching its clothes.

Kyle gritted his teeth and turned to the next page, letting out a deep groan.

「Kyle, today I was looking blankly at the sunflowers in the vase, and I suddenly thought of this. What would we be like if I hadn’t lied to you?

I shouldn’t have lied to you. I’m sorry. But I don’t regret it. I probably won’t for the rest of my life. If I hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t have been your wife.」

A lie. What did she mean, a lie? He turned to the next page, but there was nothing there. It was only when he reached the last page that he stopped moving.

He just stared at the last page in surprise.

「I love you, Kyle.」

Stunned, he stared at the paper until hot tears ran down his cheeks and fell on his name.

For a long time, he stood stunned and looked down at her handwriting, then sat down. He looked blankly at her diary, and with his trembling hands, he carefully held it in his arms.

Despite the tears on his chin dripping over her diary, he cried helplessly, his empty eyes looking up into the air.

Since they got married for each other’s agenda, it was natural for her to be neglected, ignored, and looked down upon. His thoughts did not change even when he questioned her fading purpose in their marriage. It was a natural outcome.

Even though he could have ignored it, he still asked her.

It was clear that she longed for something of her own, but it was neither money nor power. What was it? 

Kyle gritted his teeth and swallowed a groan. Stupidly, the answer to his question only appeared after her loss. She had loved him from the start.

Every time she waited for him in the dark bedroom, every time she struggled to hide her emotions, every time she was turned away and struggled with her wounds, he turned away from that noble love.

Nevertheless, he had realized at some point that his eyes were always following Aelle, so he resisted. 

It was only natural that he couldn’t quench my thirst because he couldn’t even understand the heart he had locked and buried deeply.

‘There is no sanctuary for me anywhere.’[1]

‘Please give me a place to run.’[1]

Haa, Kyle sighed then let out a self-deprecating laugh. It was a cliff, not a sanctuary, that he had given her. It was he who pushed her heart, barely holding onto him, down the cliff.

He took a breath and groaned. He wanted to say her name but he couldn’t even do it because she didn’t exist anymore.

The chill returned, and his whole body trembled helplessly. Then, as the cold air hit his tear-stained cheeks and the chill circulated through him, he hugged her diary tightly as if hugging her.

Repeating the name he could no longer call.

Kyle has been living in her bedroom since that day. He would sit on the bed, and read her diary in pursuit of her warmth and walk the bridle of memory. Instead, her memories urged his desire for death and self-torture.

Even so, there was nothing left to ruminate on her, and it was heartbreaking. The memory of her slipping away like sand from his grasp made him neither remember her nor miss her.

At such times, he’d caress the scars left on his cheeks. It was regrettable that the only thing she left on his body was a single scar; he’d rather have his whole body filled with marks she left behind. 

When he looked for her in his sleep, he’d search for memories because he had nothing to remember. He reached out in the shadows. He grasped for anything, but nothing came to the surface. 

What she loved, what she hated, what made her laugh and cry… He couldn’t remember.

Then, when he couldn’t fall asleep, he consumed sleeping pills, and finally, holding the pile of children’s clothes she had left behind in his hand, he buried his face in it.

When he buried his face in the clothes that still had the scent of her body and inhaled it deeply into his lungs, he would see an illusion that she was alive, smiling at him. 

Only then did he understand people’s desire to lose their memories in pain.

Every day, regret came flooding in and swept over him, and longing flew like an arrow and pierced his heart. It would have been better if her arrow hadn’t missed him. He wished she would have killed him.

He, who was greedy from birth, remained greedy until the end.

He would rather die than live without her, but it was even more painful not to think of her, so he decided to live. In the end, he promised that.

His vision was engulfed in darkness, and his mind dug deep into the abyss. Then he fell for her.

He felt like suffocating. The whole time he thought of her, he seemed to be suffocating. But even though he wanted to die, he couldn’t. He had to live. 

If he died, he feared that the woman inside him would fade away and cease to exist. So, Kyle tried his best to live.

Remembering her suffocated him.

It was exceptionally windy all winter long, yet Kyle took care of the flower beds with his own hands. Even when the people around him dissuaded him, even when his hands stung from the cold, he didn’t care and sat on his knees as he tended to the sunflowers.

When the sunflower petals wilted and fell as the wind swayed them, it felt as if his heart, thinking of her, had been torn into pieces. That person would never come back, but the flowers withered, bloomed, then withered again. Those flowers were just like his heart.

One day, he struggled with remorse as he continued to look for her to the point of losing his mind. When he received the report about her, the ground collapsed on him, and his vision was blinded by the unknown abyss. 

He felt that he didn’t deserve to stand before the flower bed, and so he finally cried, the feelings he had endured throughout exploding. Aelle, Aelle, Aelle. He gritted his teeth and repeated her name in his head.

“Aelle.”

When the flowers withered throughout the winter, like today, he especially wanted to die.

[1] From chapter 2

*Not 100% sure about the translation